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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Looking ahead to Hands on Literacy, Nov. 17, 2012

There will be an open meeting to organize the planning of the next Hands on Literacy conference, scheduled for Saturday, November 17, 2012, hosted at the new UWC East campus in Tampines. Anyone at your schools is welcome to join us -- whether librarian or literacy coach or reading fanatic.

Come to the planning meeting: Monday, March 19th -- 5:30 -- at the Prologue bookshop on the 4th level of Ion on Orchard Road. RSVP to Katie (kda@uwcsea.edusg/8233-2922) if you are coming to that meeting OR if you are interested in being on a subcommittee (Venue & Catering, Publicity, Sponsorship & Trade Show, Digital Work (website, app, etc.), Programme (guest speakers & workshops) & Registration, Budget & Finance, etc.). Some of you may be on spring break that week, but just let me know and I'll put you on the Google Doc of the minutes.

As this will be our third conference, we are going into it a bit calmer than the first two -- but, of course, there can always be improvements and changes.

Probably the biggest difference about this conference will be that it is preceded (on the Sunday to Thursday) by a major conference in Doha specifically about international school libraries -- the IASL conference, "The Shifting Sands of School Librarianship". Click here to see their conference website.

Here is a copy of the Call for Papers that was posted on the ECIS iSkoodle:

The Qatar International School Librarians are pleased to be hosting the 2012 International Association of School Librarianship conference in Doha, November 12-15 (preconference on November 11).

We have some great speakers lined up, including Stephen Krashen (whose latest - yet unpublished - research is all about the value of libraries), Jack Gantos, Joyce Valenza, Laurie Halse Anderson, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Eppo van Nispen.

You have until April 1st to propose a research paper for the peer-reviewed International Research Forum and until April 15 to propose a workshop or other presentation. For the online proposal form and other information, go tohttp://iasl2012.org. The registration fee is reduced for those chosen to present.

Qatar is the place to be (look for the recent 60 Minutes and CNN reports on Qatar), and November is a great time to be here. It's going to be a great conference!

There doesn't seem to be any financial information up on the website yet. So we don't know what it will cost to attend -- or what discount you get if you do a workshop.

NB: We are trying to finalize arrangements with Joyce Valenza, teacher-librarian extraordinaire, to have her fly from the Doha conference straight to Singapore to be our keynote speaker on Saturday the 17th. The trick is she needs to be back at work on the East coast of the USA by Monday. The time zones are in our favor, but it will mean she will have to leave Singapore late on Saturday. We'll keep you posted.

A lot of us here are interested in attending Doha -- and I don't see any reason why we couldn't get ourselves so organized that we could all go to Doha and still be ready for our own conference on the Saturday. As IASL is such librarian-specific professional development, it would be a shame to miss it just to put on our more generic literacies day of learning. So that's the goal -- go to IASL in Doha and put on a great one-day conference on the Saturday, along with Joyce Valenza.

Share your ideas with us

Even if you don't come to the Monday meeting or don't volunteer to be on a subcommittee, you can still give us your ideas. How could we make it better? Have you seen something at a conference that you think we could adopt for our own?